PARK SLOPE — The 12-year-old boy whose life was cut short in a Prospect Park West car accident will be honored at a concert next month — and his name will be engraved on some instruments at his school.
M.S. 51 has launched a memorial fund in honor of eighth-grader Sammy Cohen Eckstein, who died Oct. 8 after being hit by a van on Prospect Park West and Third Street.
Donations to the fund will buy instruments for the school's jazz band, which will be inscribed with a message saying they were purchased in Sammy's memory.
"Sammy was an excellent and dedicated trumpet player who played in the band and also in the special jazz ensemble," said M.S. 51 Principal Lenore Berner.
Sammy's classmates will also honor him at a Nov. 14 concert in the school auditorium.
The event is also a long-planned fundraiser to raise money for a new band room at M.S. 51, which is projected to cost about $50,000. Donations to that fund are separate from the Sammy Cohen Eckstein memorial fund, Berner said.
Performers at the concert will include three professional bands, three students bands, and Principal Berner, who sings with a jazz trio.
Sammy's older sister Tamar said at his memorial service that her brother used to "fill every silence with his silly trumpet talent and insightful comments about the world," the Jewish Daily Forward reported.
His death shocked Park Slope, and a roadside memorial of flowers and posters still stands at the spot where the accident happened. One of Sammy's classmates tied teddy bears to nearby lampposts as a reminder to motorists to drive carefully in the child-filled neighborhood.
Donations to the Sammy Cohen Eckstein fund can be made via check made out to "Friends of 51" with "Sammy Cohen Eckstein fund" in the memo section, or by clicking on the Donate Now button on the right side of school's website.
